By Matt Pointon

The other day, during one of those late night surfing sessions that can take one to some weird, wonderful and totally unexpected places, I chanced upon this video and watched it.

If you don’t have the time to watch it for yourself — and it’s not a video that I would exactly recommend — as a summary it is perhaps best described as something in-between a lengthy criticism of the Islamic media star Mufti Menk and an angry rant on the same subject by a young Islamic convert from Poland named Gamila Muwahida.

Now, before we go any further, let me state here and now, that Ms. Gamila’s religious perspective and my own are in no way in alliance.

Indeed, if anything, she is at the opposite end of the spiritual spectrum to myself.

For starters, she is a Muslim, and I am not. She believes — one assumes — implicitly, that the Qur’an is the word of God and that Mohammed was God’s prophet. I don’t, because if I did, I would be a Muslim myself.

More than that though, she also believes that there is only one true religion whereas I subscribe to the view that there are many paths to God and, crucially, there is a correct way to follow that religion, whilst I believe there can be numerous approaches.

All of that taken into account, the question therefore begs as to why I was watching her content, and why it challenged me to write this essay.

Let me explain…

Gamila’s ire — and boy, is this girl angry! — was provoked by the popular Islamic preacher Mufti Menk.

I’m familiar with him; I’ve got numerous Muslim friends who rather admire him and so I’ve watched a number of his videos over the years.

All in all, he’s not really my type. I mean, he’s a bit traditionalist and conservative for my tastes.

Conversely though, he tries. He advocates Muslims having friends with non-Muslims and, whilst not pro-LGBT, he is tolerant of the community and doesn’t preach wiping them off the face of the earth. His liberalism is cautious and wary, but he doesn’t want apostates murdered or “infidels” oppressed.

In terms of Islam, he’s a middle ground kind of guy.

Ms. Gamila is not a middle ground kind of girl. One works that out before she even speaks from her attire.

Her interpretation of the hijab is not just hair covering and even a niqab (face veil), but gloved hands and an additional veil over her eyes. She is serious about her hijab and she is serious about her faith.

Mufti Menk she condemns as “untrustworthy”, not a real Muslim, someone who “sold his Deen ages ago” and who, in her eyes, is trying to twist the religion of Islam into being something that it is not.

Something cute.

Yes, “cute”. “Cute” is the term that she uses and, whilst it may initially seem a strange term to use to refer to a faith, it works.

“Cute” is nice. It is happy, friendly, open and warm. It wants to like everyone and please everyone.

“Cute” is a podgy anime character with a squeaky voice that has the most adorable face ever, loves flowers and sings chirpy songs.

And she is right. Many of us, like our religions to be cute.

We like the fact that Jesus loves us, that Krishna danced in the flower meadow with the unbelievably beautiful Radha, that Rumi speaks of love as the key and that life is all joy and rainbows and smiles and compassion.

The Buddha’s serene smile blesses us all, and if we’re in doubt, we can go to a monastery — any tradition, doesn’t matter which — and there some unbelievably holy beardy/bald man or serenely smiling nun will bless us and pray for our soul.

God is love and all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Amen.

Except that, according to Gamila, all may not be so fluffy and lovely and well as all that.

For, as she says:

“Whether we like it or not, Islam is not cute. Islam is the religion of Allah subhana wa ta’ala The Most High, The Most Powerful.

Islam is something which must be honoured, which must be respected.

You cannot just try to make it into something cute. You cannot just try to make it a cute religion so you can feel fit into desires of a woman or fit into desires of the Westerners because that’s mostly what is it all about with this kind of lectures and so on.”

And she doesn’t stop there:

“It’s not this cute religion where I can tell to my husband that he must sit somewhere and he’s going to obey me. Yeah. It is not this feminist religion which is saying that all of us are equal and women and men are equal.

We are equal if it comes to the eyes of Allah in our deeds and our religion.

We’re not equal if it comes to our roles, if it comes to being submissive, if it comes to being a leader. We are not equal in that…

Islam is not a cute religion… It is actually a deen that is supposed to be honoured, spoke with respect, which is serious, which is speaking about things that these people don’t like.

When you avoid speaking about the jihad, when only jihad you speak is a major jihad [of the soul — controlling our desires and striving in the way of God], but you forget to speak about the minor one [self-defence — taught as defensive military jihad in Islamist circles].

When you forget to speak about the jihad, if it comes to the physical form of fighting, when you forget to speak about when you forget to speak about the hatred to the non-Muslims, when you forget to speak about shirk and hatred to shirk, when you forget to forbid evil, you do not encourage these people into Islam.

You encourage these people to a different deen.”

And much as I may wish to disagree with her, I cannot but concede that she has a point. That her religion, like all the others, does contain the harsh as well as the happy, the fundamentalist as well as the fluffy, the cruel as well as the cute.

Yes, there are different forms of Islam — as a lived expression of faith, including the Salafist variety. People live a faith in many forms — and this includes Islam.

From the Sufi mystic, the progressive, the traditionalist and to the uber-conservative Wahhabi to the Islamist. There’s not one way of living Islam.

And it’s not just her faith. As a Christian, I have also to concede that whilst Jesus is love and he forgave others on the Cross, the Inquisition was also a product of his teachings; teachings that did not forbid slavery explicitly, that inspired an antisemitism that has pervaded for two millennia, and a church that has made sex feel dirty and with guilt almost overpowering.

How do we cope with this?

My friend Brian — brought up Catholic, now Buddhist — once told me that he was no longer a Catholic because the former Pope — curiously, he was Polish too, maybe there is something in the waters of the Vistula…? — once decreed that one cannot be an “à la carte” Catholic.

You either accept it all, or none at all. And since he could not go with the former, Brian opted for the latter.

At the time, I vehemently disagreed with Brian and found the Pope’s statement rather silly but, as with Gamila’s pronunciations, it challenged me and made me think about why I thought such a viewpoint was so fundamentally wrong.

Back when I was studying comparative religions at university, I was introduced to the concept of the “spiritual salad bar”.

The spiritual salad bar is that post-war phenomenon whereby, rather than accepting the entire monolithic structure (as Pope John Paul II and Gamila have done), people these days increasingly pick and choose what they like from the world’s spiritual tradition, just as one might pick and choose items from a salad bar.

The term is deliberately intended to be condescending and pejorative, but I intend to challenge that.

As both a spiritual salad barist and someone who really enjoys actual salad bars (and other buffets…) I believe we should own the term as our own.

Why?

Because, ultimately, this is about belief.

I believe that God exists and is just and merciful and kind. I believe that, not with evidence, but because it feels correct in my heart.

Ultimately, there is no definitive evidence for God; if there were, Richard Dawkins would never win a debate, but, conversely, there is no evidence to suggest there isn’t a deity.

So, one chooses to believe or not. And both I and Gamila choose to believe.

Then, however, we part ways. Because, whilst it was going with my gut that ignited the spark of belief, the spiritual salad barist continues with her gut after that.

She surveys, samples, compares all the delicacies on offer at the salad bar and picks the ones that suit her (or even interprets — invents — her own, perhaps mixing elements of one dish with another).

Maybe she has a spicy palette? Well then, the plainer dishes she leaves untouched. Perhaps she likes a citrusy tang?

Well then, the options without lemon, orange and lime in them are eschewed. She innately knows her God and lets her inner wisdom guide her to Him.

Gamila and John Paul II, however, are different. Their gut guides them to God, but they need a structure in which to relate to Him.

Gamila encountered Islam and decided that one was the faith for her.

She could have just as easily become a strict Buddhist or Traditionalist Catholic. Both offer similar rigid structures and a total lifestyle.

Watching her videos, I reckon that she’d probably do well as a Bible Belt tradwife or a nun — be she dressed in a habit or shaven-headed with orange robes. But Islam was the one she chose/encountered and so she adopted it in full (in her Wahhabi-esque variety as it is taught in exclusivist terms).

For the fact is that our brains work differently and diverse humans react to structure in diverse ways.

I personally don’t like it. In my day job I fight against hierarchies and rigidity.

I find structure claustrophobic, confining, a barrier to the Divine. But some people truly need it.

A friend of mine who is an expert in autism explained:

“For someone who is autistic, rules and structure provide guidance, clarity, structure and meaning. They give a framework to navigate life and their faith.

Without such, the landscape can appear overwhelming, blurry or quite simply not worth its weight in salt.”

Now, I’m not saying the Gamila is autistic. She may be, she may not.

But she clearly needs structure, a whole, a totality, which is why the salad barists like me… or Mufti Menk, (even though he only picks and chooses timidly), confuse, anger and, perhaps, scare her.

The problem is though, is that it’s not as binary as all that.

For the thing is, like it or not, Gamila is also the very thing she hates, as too was John Paul and as too is my good friend Brian.

Yes, we are all purveyors of the salad bar, even if we don’t realise it.

Let’s continue with the analogy.

Liberal Matt comes up to the salad bar and makes his choice. A dollop of Krishna, a dash of Pagan goddess worship, a large helping of Jesus and, adherence to hadiths, hmm… nah, tried them once, not my thing.

The fact is that Gamila too feeds at the salad bar but since the choice either overwhelms or disgusts her, she instead gives her tray to someone else and asks them to fill it for her. Like being unable to choose from the vast array of dishes at the local Chinese so you opt for Set Menu B.

You hand over your freedom of choice to an expert.

Now she would argue that her choice was handed over to another but that other was Allah and she follows His guidance alone. The problem is though, it isn’t true.

God, by His very nature, tends to be a bit of a vague taskmaster. Islamically, Allah’s only guidance to mankind — if it actually is by Him — was the Qur’an and that book is extremely opaque and imprecise in day-to-day details, which is why most Muslims — including Gamila — look for extra guidance elsewhere and find it in the sayings of God’s prophet, the hadith.

Now, there is a sect of Muslims called Quranists who follow only the Qur’an, eschewing the hadith and other traditions. They pray (generally) three times a day, not five, and may, on occasion, drink alcohol.

So, the question begs that, if she is so worried about innovations and following God alone and no human, then why does Gamila not follow the Quranist model, since they are the ones who adhere to Allah’s revelation only?

Because, in actuality, the person whom she gave her spiritual salad box to fill was not one of them and who made his own choices in the name of Allah. Well-intentioned he probably was, but it was still a choice. 

There is always a choice.

For the fact is that if God exists — and I believe He does — then He is smart enough to recognise one simple and obvious fact: human beings are all different.

What works for Matt may not work for Gamila and vice versa.

And so, there is no one solution for all, there cannot be. For it would never work.

I do not know Gamila’s backstory, nor her present day trials and tribulations. But I do recognise that she is someone who needs a structure to adhere to, a set of rules to guide her. And fair play to her.

At the moment, Islam seems to be doing it for her; in the past it was clearly something different and, a decade in the future, it may well be something different again.

Salafi burnout is a recognised phenomenon and converts with a (version of) faith as rigid and fervent as hers are the most susceptible to it. But I don’t know, she may stay where she is spiritually — if she is autistic, change is hard — and be content there.

All I can say is that, as I stand at the salad bar, slathering over all the spiritual adventures and discoveries on offer, and I see a faceless scholar filling her box up with the choices that he believes Allah wants her to have, then I say a silent prayer for her.

For whatever choices she makes and paths she follows, what is without doubt is that she is angry and uneasy with Mufti Menk, with non-Muslims, and with the world.

Such anger is never healthy in the long-term. Not physically, not mentally and not spiritually.

And so, I say my silent prayer for her, that her anger and discontent with the world quells and that she finds the peace and contentment that she — and all of us — so desperately seek and need.

Whatever spiritual sustenance we are consuming.

Credits:

This blog was first published on Medium (14/09/2025).

Disclaimer:

The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Voice of Salam.

This post was originally published on Voice of Salam.